BY ROB SALERNO – Some days I wonder if queer culture will ever become so mainstream that there won’t be anything left for an alternative gay and lesbian newspaper to cover. Today is one of those days.
People, the National Post website now has a tag for “Gay Sex.” That’s it. Our mission is over.
Oh, wait, its only entry is yet another hysterically inept and hateful Barbara Kay column.
Kay writes a shockingly poorly researched column about the Supreme Court’s hearing yesterday about the prosecution of HIV transmission. Naturally, she’s pro-criminalization. That’s not the problem — after all, this is a divisive question.
But Kay goes on to question, “Why then should these eloquently expressed ideals be reserved for the spread of disease by men engaged in heterosexual sex?”
“So far no charges have to my knowledge ever been laid against a gay man
for infecting another gay man through “bareback sex” – sex deliberately
pursued without a condom,” she writes.
I understand, Babs, you’re busy. And after all, who has the time to sift through the 116,000 “gay sex hiv transmission prosecution canada” search results Google produced for me in 0.26 seconds.
It’s so much easier when the only research you do is polling the
voices in your own head. That’s how I know that Barbara Kay prefers to
be called “Babs,” speaks fluent Finnish, writes Big Bang Theory slash fan-fiction, and was once
briefly institutionalized after she was caught eating her own feces in front of a
Harvey’s while singing “La Isla Bonita.” She’s better now, as long as she takes her meds and has access to a steady and varied supply of intergenerational DP porn. That’s just what my current research shows.
But just in case you still don’t believe me, Babs, here’s one case (he was acquitted). Here’s another. And another.
Bizarrely, Kay even implies that the law is coddling HIV-positive female sex workers.
“As for prison sex, are there enough courtrooms in the land to
accommodate all those incidents of undisclosed HIV status if victims
were to pursue justice against their partners or rapists?” Babs goes on to ask. Which . . .wait, so now are you saying that prisoners should get special dispensation because we don’t have the resources to prosecute prison rape?
But if prisoners get Ms Kay’s sympathy, mothers don’t. Kay appears to argue that HIV-positive mothers should be locked up for transmitting HIV to their fetuses in utero.
“Between 1980 and 2007 at least 237 Canadian children were perinatally
infected with AIDS, and 2,358 were diagnosed as HIV-positive,” she writes. “They were
infected by their mothers, who certainly knew their own condition.”
That’s bull. Obviously, those numbers are going to be skewed heavily toward the ‘80s and ‘90s, when HIV treatments were unavailable. Even then, as the Public Health Agency of Canada reports:
“There have been 2,851 infants identified as perinatally exposed to HIV born between 1984 and 2008. The number of HIV-exposed
infants reported per birth year has increased steadily from 140 infants
in 2000 to 238 in 2008… Although the number of infants exposed to HIV has increased over time, the proportion of infants confirmed to be HIV-infected has decreased from 9.3% in 2000 to 1.7% in 2008. Correspondingly,the proportion of HIV-positive mothers receiving antiretroviral therapy has increased steadily in
the last 9 years, attaining 87.8% in 2008.”
But it looks like Kay would prefer that all HIV-positive women be forcibly sterilized.
Well, I guess I just solved my dilemma. As long as the mainstream outlets are pumping out tripe like this, Xtra’s still needed.
Why you can trust Xtra
